Ford F150

Just a quick question for fellow anglers. I have a 2001 Ford F-150 which just turned 57,000 miles. I have recently noticed a slight shake at around 65 mph. I just thought it was a unbalanced tire at worst. I took it in today for brakes and ended up with a big bill. I guess the lower ball joints went out. The guy at the shop said they only go 50,000. That sounds a little fishy??

Normally, and I say normally…..I have found with the Fords it is a universal joint if not a tire. I have not had problems with ball joints on any Ford until 100k. That is to say with normal wear and tear.
I do Know however, any thing wrong in the front end of a 4×4 can be a pain and costly

Just 2 cents worth
Bret

My first question would be do you trust the guy who did the work i.e. had good luck with him in the past. Did you authorize the additional work? He should have notified you of the extra problems/cost. The whole 50,000 mile thing doesn’t sound right though. I have a 97 with 100,000 and have had no problems like this. The guy that works on mine did say that they are known for the rotors warping but that is it. Fishy?? Yep, definately possible.

wiswalleyenut

if you dont trust the guy ask to see the old ones, its as simple as that

You won’t notice warped rotors until you apply the brakes, sometimes there might be a metal to metal squeal at very slow speed. I’ve had to replace u-joints in my older fords it seems like every 2 to 3 years. But the only warning I had was a vibration in the floor board and seat. Never really noticed it in the steering wheel. Sometimes you can hear a bad joint when you engage a gear like reverse or forward. Have to be listening for it tho. A bad joint will get very hot to the touch also.
Did the shake dissappear?

I drive a 2000 Explorer which I believe is similar in parts to the F150. I had to replace the lower ball-joints at about 75K.

I’m on my third Ford. My Tbird had warped rotors which shimmied at braking, unfortunately this also masked the ball joint problem at 100,000 miles. Tire finally fell off! My F-150 I had to replace ball joints at 96,000 miles, and my F-150 I have now I had to replace ball joints on as well. My trusted mechanic has shown me each time and sort of explained that the extra weight from camper and boat can cause additional wear. 50,000 isnt very many miles though unless truck has been driven in some tough spots and hard driving situations…plow?

I’ve got a ’99 F-150 with 120,000 and absolutely no problems with the ball joints . The only complaint that I have is maybe the breaks or the gas mileage . I have heard of the ball joints going out a little early on those trucks though.

Yup Mine are due too, but I do have 100K on my ’01, still I think it probably within reason they are going bad, mine probab started some time ago, atleast I think since my front tires have a tendency to cup. I got quotes in the $600 range

At 80k, my 2000 is on its second replacement set of lowers and first of the uppers. This last full set I went with greaseable joints since Ford has been replacing a lot of their permanently greased (read “no maintenance”) ball joints.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Broadwaybob you are correct OE ball joints in Fords are sealed with no greasable zerks. I think Ford should re-think that design feature! I also went with a lower ball joint with zerks. Kind of a no brain choice there.

The no maitanence front ball joints are a joke from Ford, if they were built good to last the life of a vehicle I woudn’t have a problem, but they are not. My mechanic repalced mine at 105,000 with non-Ford joints WITH grease zerts. They will last forever

My 01 F150 had the non greasable ball joints replaced at 60,000 miles with some Moog ones. Keep em greased, they oughtta last forever. I have 80,000 miles on the truck now and started to feel a vibration at about 60/65. Turns out the ball joints were fine, needed a rear driveshaft u-joint.

FWIW, the only other problem I have heard about on a regular basis for this model F150 is the rear axle seals leaking. This can get fluid all over the rear brakes and make a big mess of things.

I know, because I just had my wheels off.

most of the 4×4 trucks and suv’s we take in on trade with 60,000 or more miles on them need ball joints, just some need them more than others. unfortunatly most of the population subcribe to the “if it aint broke dont fix it” mentality. so the manfacturers went to a sealed ball joint, as a sealed ball joint will last 60 to 80k where a greasable ball joint will last only 20to30k MAX with no greasing. Now if the majority of the population would have half the clue most of us IDA’ers have and would actually do some prevenative maintanence grease zerk jall joints would still be standard equipment. But if it was a perfect world the line at the boat landing wouldnt be half a mile long because some moron cant back his trailer into the water. In short if you do your P.M. make the switch to the zerks and they will last forever. As for the landing I got no idea for ya there.
Later……Corey

So did they also find out what was causing the vibration? A worn ball joint isn’t going to cause a vibration. It isn’t a moving part, generally, when simplying driving straight. It is a pivot point for the tires on the top and bottom. A worn joint will cause extreme tire wear that in turn will cause vibration. But in and of itself a loose ball joint will not cause a vibration.

For anyone to pick out a specific mileage and say that “this part” will last “this long” is no more accurate than flipping a coin to see if your pregnant. Mechanical, man made, parts fail whenever the time is right. For an average city dweller that uses his truck as a car 50,000 seems a little early for a 97 and newer F-150. The same truck that is used as a truck on rougher roads, 50,000 miles isn’t hard to believe.

The greasable versus non greasable debate is an interesting one. Personally I like the greasable design but understand why Ford, and all other brands, switched to non greasable joints. First is price. It is simply cheaper to produce a greaseless joint as there is less steps involved to get to the final product. Second is joint longevity. For anyone that owns a 96 or older F150 knows, greasable joints are very short lived. I made my bread and butter on them babies weekly! You could almost smell the money roll in the door if that truck was over 45k miles. The problem was, as Ford described, is a greasable joint is almost never greased properly. For whatever reason people like to pump grease in until it is hanging out all over. This causes a lot of little “seams” for grit, grime, and water to infiltrate the joint by. A properly greased joint only gets 2-3 pumps each service. Same for u-joints.

Since Ford has switched designs (97 and newer) their warranty failure rate has nearly dissappeared. Prior to 97 there was nearly a 50% rate of failure before the warranty expired. That reflected trucks with at least one ball joint or u-joint failure. That’s right, nearly 50% of the trucks had at least one joint fail before 36k miles! That percentage is now below 8% for comparison.

As for taking a ball joint out of the truck and showing you it is loose, good luck. Unless the joint is very nearly going to fall apart you will not show someone the looseness in your hand. Just isn’t enough leverage to do so.

For information a full ball joint replacement job on an F series truck is a flate rate time of 5.9 hours including wheel alignment. That is for all four joints. FWIW the last several months, even a year, at most shops has been very tough, IE slow. Use the knowledge of labor time to negotiate a better price on replacement. A skilled technican can complete the job in roughly half the time, even faster if the end of the day is nearing.

As a bit of first hand experience I’ll compare my F-150 (I have two 94 and 95) to my folks 97. They have 130,000 miles on their truck and have no ball joint play as of last oil change. My 94 has 165,000 miles on it and has one lower and one upper (opposite sides) that are loose. This will be the third time replacing these joints and they are greasable everytime. Granted a shoemakers kids tend to wear the worst shoes in town, I know better but don’t always do better.

I’m the parts manager at a Ford Dealership an I also have a 01 F150 4×4. The truck has 60k on it and also just had the lower ball joints replaced. The ball joints were not shot and I probably could have gotten some more miles out of them but, I was in need of tires and didn’t want the new ones starting off on the wrong foot so I replaced the lower ball joints. I have found that most ball joint that have been replaced through the shop don’t cause a vibration but once a ball joint starts to loosen up it’s only going to get worse. Yes Ford does seem to have a problem with them but we also have a sister store that sells Gm’s and they have some problems as well. The frt u/joint for the four wheel drive is a c/v joint and they don’t give problems very often however the rotors do seem to warp and need to be replaced or turned from time to time. As far as the trucks that have 120k and no problems yet you may not be checking the ball joints correctly. They don’t check the ball joints on a torsion bar system the same way you check a truck with coil springs. The torsion bar has tension on the ball joint at all times and the only way you can check it is to take the tension off by pring the top arm down and seeing how much play the joint has. I think that many of you will see more play than you thought you had. I would ask to see the old parts just to make sure but I would not condem your mechanic as they do loosen up on low milage vechicles more than high milage. My guess is that the extra turning of city driving wears more of the joint than just going in a straight line down the highway. Mark

mb757 is dead on about checking the ball joints correctly. About two years ago Ford actually sent letters out to owners explaining the PROPER method to check tie rod ends because so many technicans fail to check them correctly and replace them when they don’t need it or, worse, don’t replace them when needed. Ball joints are no exception. Be sure your repair center has competent techs on hand.

Had mine checked today while I had the pickup in for the cruise switch. They recommended replacing them as they were “pretty loose.”

The pickup has ~78,000 miles on it, but it still seems to have lived a charmed life for suspension parts to be going out (I’m still running the original tires, and they could make it into next year no problem).

Other stuff that’s gone wrong on my 99:

1. Cruise switch – nothing bad happened and no houses were burned to the ground in the recall of this F150.

2. The trim ring around the overdrive shutoff button kept falling off. After about the 10th time, it got lost. When I went to Ford for a new one, the parts guy says, “They redesigned it because the original ones kept falling off.” No kiddin’? Thanks, they still charged me $9 for a plastic ring the size of a quarter.

2. The windshield wipers ran on their own. When I first got the truck, they would take a swipe at the windshield about once every month or two. After three years, it got to the point where they would run a swipe of two every time I turned a corner. I had the multi-function wiper/signal switch replaced. $250. Hasn’t done it since.

3. The odometer doesn’t always light up. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it’s faded, sometimes it’s dark. I haven’t bothered to look into it yet, since it doesn’t even really rise to the level of “minor annoyance.”

All in all, everything has been minor, and in five years of owning the truck now I’ve put around 55k on it without doing much more than regular maintenance and filling it with gas. I’d buy another one in a heartbeat (no wait, that’s Chevy… never mind).

Had to have the cruise wiring harness replaced due to recall on my 95 and 99. The odometer light on the 99 keeps blanking out. It can be a pain when you rely on the reading for the next oil change. Cost prohibitive to fix since they tell you they have to tear the dash down to get to it.